Separate Ways
by StarSpangledSilence
Summary: Do you know that feeling when you look at a person- and you can sort of feel their own fate slipping away from yours? That was the feeling Severus had when he looked into Lily's eyes. And in a sense, he'd always known- One-sided Snily. Theme of Unrequited Love.


"So you're going to go out with him. On a date. And…and you don't mind him? The fact that he's nothing like you— nothing like us?" He wasn't trying to sound angry, or crazed, or hurt like some wild animal. Like the way he sounded now, his dark hair falling in front of his eyes as though trying to hide it. Severus scooted back until he hit the tree, and leaned against that for support. Support that was at the moment well needed.

Do you know, heart, that feeling when the bottom drops from under you and you're falling? Not knowing how deep, or how high, just knowing that this one was gonna hurt you.

Lily wanted to talk.

The note asked him to come out here at midnight.

He'd been happy. Even hopeful.

"No— you don't know that about him, Sev!" Lily Evans was beautiful in the moonlight. Maybe that was a word too strongly used at their age. Sixteen was surely too young. But sixteen was the year Severus needed to figure things out. He wouldn't go back to that place another year, where his parents tore down the world and tore down their son. Such a pathetic son with one hopeful dream left. Lily's skin glowed pearly bright. Her hair was— not like a cliched curtain. Like a sheet of gossamer. Like flames, flickering in the light. "I think we were wrong about him. I want to give him a chance: he…he seems really interested in me."

Severus's heart-hungry, soul-searching eyes hardened.

"He is." The tone went disdainful and cold. Severus swallowed, shook his curls away from his face. "He looks at you like he already _owns_ you. Like he expects you to like him. He looks at you like you don't even have a history— like you don't have _me_ as a friend. Or maybe you just haven't told him the difference yet?"

"He doesn't do any of that, Severus! You're…completely blowing this out of proportion. He's a pure blood who sees me as another witch. That's more than a lot of people do!" Lily crossed her arms on the defensive.

"What I mean to say is— how I want to put it—"

"You can't come up with anything logical against me dating him, can you? We've been over it. He doesn't want to hurt me. He is genuinely interested. I could break it off if I wanted to and you're standing there telling me you want the best for me, and then— what?"

"I just wanted to know," Snape cut in, and looked up coldly. "Whether you had any thoughts on dating a man who's a bully and actively targets _me_. Or did I stop being your friend, already, Lily? After all this time?"

Lily didn't say anything. She turned her head, sighed, and leaned against the adjacent tree.

"You're growing up to be a talented witch," he told her, aware he'd hurt her feelings. His heart ached. Because as much as he didn't want to hurt himself, he didn't want to hurt her either. He hated it so much when they fought, hated it all the more when he could hear his father's tone in his own voice. No way would he want to capture Lily Evans the way Eileen Prince had been captured, all the brightness sucked out of her cheeks. "I still mean every word I tell you. You're beautiful and you'll make some really big changes in the world. Our world. Even the muggle world."

"I know what you feel, Severus." She said it slowly. Quietly. The way she always promised that she understood his feelings, and yet- no answers were ever given. She turned to look at him, the wind rustling coldly, and Snape looked up sharply. "I know what you're thinking. How could I reject you and— and accept him?"

"I know why. You don't have to explain it to me," he said curtly. Lily Evans had accepted the most popular boy in school. But he'd always known she'd go far, she'd have the best. And Severus Snape was not the best for anyone. Lily Evans had accepted someone and the fight was over. "Well, thanks for telling me." He pushed himself off the tree, tall and lanky and awkward and not at all attractive like well built, well loved James Potter.

"Severus…." But she made no moves to keep him, and Severus's pride carried him away and back up into his dorm. Her voice was still in his mind. It caressed at his pain, but her voice had a bittersweet acid for him.

Because James made her excited. Made her feel like she had to try to gain his affections, while Severus was only far too eager to give everything away, too eager to finally have someone called his own to love. And since he'd saw her as that heart hungry kid he was, running away from his house burning down and his mum screaming and his dad going mad as usual, he'd known it'd be her. Lily Evans. Lily, with the pretty pale skin and the green eyes, and the brightness in her life that wouldn't be dampened. And he'd give his worthless self to make her_ happen_, whether she was a muggle born or not.

It wasn't about dying for someone. That was all too easy: one simple move and you could end your miseries for the person you loved the most. It was _living_ for someone, that was the difficult part: making sure that they were happy. That she was happy. That she would have everything she wanted, even if it meant that sixteen year-old Severus Snape could already feel her brightness slipping further and further away from himself.

James Potter hadn't been there when he'd taken on a gang of fourth years from his own House for picking on her. He hadn't known what it was like scraping together money every year to get her a present, even when he had to save up to buy his own supplies every year. He didn't know what it was like to fight and hope on one little woman when Eileen Prince Snape had passed away and Severus was really alone in the world, with friends that Lily Evans hated.

He'd done everything so Lily could be comfortable around him. Happy. And then she'd fallen for a Gryffindor like herself. Maybe it wasn't the choices that mattered, about who each of them really were. It was just fate that decided, well, Severus Snape didn't deserve a thing because he was a greasy, pathetic fool. Even after all this time.

And always.

* * *

**A/N:**

**First thing for Harry Potter. May write more for this fandom later on, it is ever so nice. This is a repost of something I wrote on tumblr a while ago and I tried to make it less silly! **


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